


come back to me

by curiositykilled



Series: tumblr prompts [15]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 09:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: In moments like these, all that matters is that they are still alive.





	come back to me

                  His armor took the brunt of it. Scuffed and fractured, it will need repairing once they get back to the castleship, but it saved Shiro’s life.

                  That doesn’t make what’s underneath any easier.

                  Lance helps him out of the armor piece by piece once they’re back in Black. His own was shed in moments, his cuirass and helmet and bracers all piled on the floor, but Shiro’s isn’t so easy to remove. His left arm is held close to his chest, and attempts to raise it have him blanching and sucking in a hissing breath. His helmet, cracked from visor to the crown of his head, sits beside him on the bed as a grim reminder of what could’ve been. Lance combs his hand through Shiro’s hair, and he leans into the touch with closed eyes.

                  They pause there, Lance caught between the desire to hold Shiro close, wrap him in his arms and feel that stubborn heart beat in time with his own, and the knowledge that they need to get the rest of his armor off. He compromises by bowing Shiro’s head forward and pressing a kiss to the top before getting back to work.

                  Pidge’s handheld scanner had confirmed that there were no serious lacerations or broken bones. The armor hadn’t punctured anything. Aside from some scrapes and some bruising Shiro was miraculously whole. It was a lot more than Lance had expected when the robeast’s plated tail sent Shiro flying into one of the planet’s half-ruined buildings.

                  His bracers are sat next to the broken helmet, and Lance kneels to work off Shiro’s boots and greaves. Shiro leans on his good arm, whole body listing to that side. He watches Lance with half-hooded eyes.

                  “You know, I’m always happy to get on my knees for you,” Lance teases, “but this isn’t quite the way I planned.”

                  That draws a little smile from Shiro, just one side of his mouth curling up in amusement. It’s a success, all things considered. There was a real time today when lance wasn’t sure he was going to see that smile again at all. He can still hear, too loud, the crack of Shiro’s body hitting the stone wall. He can still see the way his body went slack, limp, like all the juggernaut energy that was Shiro had suddenly vanished.

                  “Sorry,” Shiro says now. “I’ll try to make it up to you tomorrow.”

                  Lance snorts and stands up to drop the greaves with the rest of the armor. The boots slump on the floor beside the bed. They work the thigh guards off together, disengaging the lock mechanism and sliding them down Shiro’s legs before they join the pile on the bed. Lance straightens.

                  “Ready?”

                  Shiro takes a deep breath before nodding, resolute. He sits up tall, unfolding his arm with effort. Lance sets to work. The good thing about everyone having the same armor is that they’re all familiar with it. The disengage button is tucked into a seam on the left side, and the second one exactly opposite of the first. The back plate, jetpack and all, releases and drops to the bed with a quiet thud. A groan escapes Shiro as the pressure releases, and Lance winces in sympathy. The front plate has to be lifted off, and then he’s down to just the undersuit.

                  Shiro starts pulling that off, as if reinvigorated by how close they are to finished. Lance helps ease it down his chest before freezing when it’s at Shiro’s hips.

                  “Fuck,” he blurts out.

                  Purple covers Shiro’s chest, wrapping over his shoulder in a deep, mottled strap. It feathers out toward the middle of his chest, but other bruises pattern his stomach ands ides. Scars from his time with the Galra cut through the dark in a too-pale pink.

                  “How,” he says but can’t finish.

                  How are you moving? How are you alive? How did you get up from this and come charging back into the fray?

                  He loves Shiro, loves his laugh lines and his off-key singing. He laughs at his lack of fashion and talks him down from Slav-induced rage. But there’s an indomitable will at his core, the kind that isn’t supposed to exist outside of legends. It leaves Lance breathless, and sometimes scared. Shiro won’t give up – but what more is he going to have to endure as the universe tests the limits of his strength?

                  “Yeah,” Shiro says, surveying the bruising, “might have to delay the makeup sex by a couple days.”

                  Despite himself, Lance can’t help a breath of laughter as he shakes his head. It’s enough to jar him back into motion, and he sets to pulling the suit down Shiro’s legs and flinging it on the bed with the rest. There’s more bruising here, a deep red-violet welling in the backs of his legs and wrapping tendrils around to the front. Crouched on the balls of his feet before Shiro, Lance runs a featherlight touch over his left leg, leaving goose bumps in his wake.

                  “I don’t know how you’re going to sleep,” he says.

                  Shiro shrugs.

                  “Had worse,” he says, “and my bed wasn’t nearly as soft.”

                  It’s not actually reassuring, but Lance doesn’t point that out. Pretending Shiro’s past away won’t make his scars fade or nightmares vanish, and if he can get some sleep now, at least that’s some kind of backwards blessing.

                  “You sure you don’t want me to stay in Blue?” Lance asks. “I don’t want to jostle you and make it worse.”

                  “No,” Shiro says immediately, hand closing around Lance’s wrist.

                  It’s a loose grip, but Shiro looks almost sheepish as he releases Lance to rub at the back of his skull, where his dark hair is buzzed short. When he speaks, the words are directed to his bare needs.

                  “I’d like it if you stayed,” he says. “I could use the company.”

                  “Okay,” Lance accepts, easy.

                  There are nights when Shiro can’t stand to be touched, but more often are the nights when they all crave a touch that isn’t violence, that doesn’t hurt. He can’t count the times they’ve all collapsed together in the castleship’s lounge, a pile of exhausted limbs all tangled together by morning. It’s the reason he knows Allura talks in her sleep and Pidge kicks and Keith has terrible breath when he first wakes. Inevitably, Coran will be there, too, sitting upright on one of the sofas even as he snores loud enough to shake his mustache.

                  Now, Lance shifts Shiro’s gear to the floor and shucks off his own suit to crawl in beside Shiro. The beds in the lions really aren’t meant to be shared, but Shiro is a lot smaller than Zarkon and, with their legs tangled together, they fit comfortable enough. Once they’ve shuffled around enough, Shiro releases a heartfelt sigh, and the cabin lights wink off. It’s a little eerie, sometimes, how connected he and Black are ever since he came back, but Lance isn’t going to complain when the cabin settles into such gentle darkness. In the following lull, Shiro’s hand finds it’s way to Lance’s cheek, and he brushes the synthetic thumbtip over his cheekbone.

                  “Thank you,” he says.

                  Lance hums and turns to press a kiss to Shiro’s palm instead. No matter how many times he does it, the action always makes Shiro go still.

                  “Thank you for making it back to us,” he says. “To me.”

                  Under his palm, Shiro’s ribcage decompresses in a shuddery exhale. He moves his hand from Lance’s cheek to his side, giving a little tug that’s all the direction Lance needs. Opening his arms, Lance draws them close, mindful of the bruises. They hold each other in the gentle quiet, skin to skin, like there’s something holy in the embrace. In the night, their heartbeats thud a steady reminder that they are alive, alive, alive.


End file.
